Many apparatuses presently have display devices and means for introducing commands such as a keyboard, a mouse or a voice recognition tool. With these means, the user can introduce commands and see the requested information on a viewing screen. Touch screens can be used at the same time to display the information, present control icons and detect the selection of an icon to activate the associated command. Such screens enable intensive interaction with the user and an almost infinite number of commands since they depend only on the capacity of the apparatus to generate menus.
The classic commands that a user can introduce into a display device include browsing commands. These commands come into play when the user launches a search for elements coming from a network or a memory of his apparatus. The elements are then presented on the screen in the form of a list of identifiers in which the user can browse. If an element of the list interests the user, he can select it and start acting on the associated element. For example, if the user asks to see all the applications available on his mobile telephone, then he launches the display of a list of icons associated with the applications available. The user browses in the list displayed by moving a focus. When the focus is positioned on the desired icon, the user introduces a selection command to activate the execution of the application associated with this icon.
Other identifiers can be used to identify a selectable element, for example a string of characters representing the title of a song, a photograph identifying a work of art, a video sequence identifying a film, etc. If the number of identifiers is great, then it is not possible to display all the identifiers of the list. Thus, the apparatus displays a fragment of the list and offers the user browsing commands enabling the viewing window to be moved within the list.
When the user activates a browsing command, i.e. a command aimed at moving the viewing window, he expects a change in the content displayed on his screen. The identifiers are generally laid out in a 2D matrix, and the viewing window moves according to the following four directions commands: Up, Down, Left and Right. The browsing commands can be likened to commands for moving the viewing window in a given direction.
A problem arises when there is no longer any identifier to be displayed in the direction specified by the command. If the browsing command continues to act on the display, then the viewing window showing the identifiers moves beyond the end of the document or the last element present in this direction and the screen becomes empty of content, and the user cannot determine the direction by which he can return to the identifiers on the screen. Furthermore, if the screen is empty, the user may believe that his apparatus is out of service since the activation of the command produces no visual effect. In such circumstances, it would be desirable to inform the user that the activation of a browsing command does indeed produce an effect and that, since the edge of the displayable content has been reached, the activation of new commands in this direction will not show a new content on the screen.
The patent application WO 2004/105392 describes a browsing within an ordered list of elements, in displaying sub-lists. An element is in the focus and browsing commands enable it to be moved. To situate this element within the displayed sub-list, the current element is surrounded by two elements of the list. This presentation is no longer possible when the element is the last (or the first) in the list. In this case, the menu as described in FIGS. 9, 10 and 11 of this request displays a sub-list with the element in the focus preceded or followed by an empty location. This empty location is the differentiating sign that an end of the list has been reached. But this prior-art document shows an absence of mobility of the display when the end of the list is reached. The user therefore cannot determine whether his apparatus is out of service or whether he has reached a browsing limit.
An exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure provides another way to alert a user to the fact that the end of the list of the elements in the current browsing direction has been reached.